If you’re an architect, you will know what someone means when they mention residential architecture. If you’re not in the industry, though, you might not know quite what the term means.
It’s helpful to know this term, even if you’re not an architect. A time might come when you want to apply some of the fundamentals if you’re adding to your house or switching up the décor. We’ll talk about residential architecture in this brief crash course.
What Exactly is Residential Architecture?
Residential architecture is relatively easy to understand as a broad concept. It means building or designing non-commercial living spaces or properties. In other words, any time you design or build a home, that’s residential architecture at work.
If you have an idea for your existing home, such as adding a skylight, putting in a range hood, or changing the half-bathroom in your basement to a full bathroom, all of that falls under the blanket residential architecture category. The more you learn about it, though, the more you’ll understand the concept’s scope and complexity.
Why Should You Know About Residential Architecture?
You might feel like you can go through your whole life without knowing the first thing about residential architecture, or any architecture, for that matter. Some people like to look at homes and understand whether they’re Victorian-influenced, Cape Cods, Colonials, etc. Other individuals don’t think about any of that at all.
The time when you’ll likely want to think and know about residential architecture, though, is if you’re ever a homeowner and you want to make some changes. If that ever happens, it’s helpful to know some residential architecture basics because you’ll want to be able to describe to contractors the changes that you want.
For instance, you might want them to add some baseboards or crown molding, or maybe you want some decorative backsplash in your kitchen or bathroom. The more you know about this sort of thing, the easier of a time you will have communicating your wishes.
Why Else Would You Want to Know About Residential Architecture?
You might want to know about residential architecture if you buy some land and you want to design and build a house from scratch there. You might decide to go that route if you come into some money, but you want to build a home according to your specifications instead of looking for one. Maybe you’re not finding what you want anywhere, so you’ll choose to design and create your new home from the ground up.
You might also want to build a dwelling away from other people. Maybe you can find some homes that look like what you want in a house, but you want a few acres so you’ll have distance between yourself and your neighbors.
The Different Home Designs
If you wish to know more about residential architecture, there are many ways you can find out about it. You can read books, watch YouTube videos, or look at homes on Pinterest. Apart from that, though, you can learn a few basics right now.
You should understand that four basic house designs exist. There is the one-story home, otherwise called a ranch house. The one-and-one-half-story home is another option. Split-level homes exist, as do two-story homes.
Then, there are three-story homes, four-story ones, etc. Victorian-style homes tend to have multiple stories.
If you want a home that matches one of these styles, you can sometimes find that by heading to a specific part of the country. For instance, if you go to New England, you will see many Cape Cod-style homes. If you want Colonial-style homes, you will often find those in the Northeastern United States.
What Kind of Home Do You Want?
As you learn more about residential architecture, you will probably find that a particular home variety attracts you. Everyone has different aesthetics, and you will feel just as differently about homes as you would about clothing.
You will find that some homes will cost less or more because they’re either larger or smaller according to their architecture. For example, something like a Victorian will probably cost more because it has multiple stories, while a ranch-style home should cost less because there’s no second level to it.
However, home costs will also vary depending on the part of the country in which you reside.
If you want to learn more about residential architecture, you should be able to find out plenty about it online and through various publications.
